Secret Life: Ricky’s secret is out

Yesterday’s weekly episode of “The Secret Life of the American Teenager” included a confirmation of what some viewers might have already guessed. 

For those who don’t keep up with the show, it airs on the ABC Family Channel on Monday nights and chronicles the life of  pregnant teen Amy Juergens,  along with the lives of her family and friends.

Ricky, the father of Amy’s baby, was the victim of not only physical abuse, but sexual abuse from his father. The news comes out because Ricky’s father just got out of prison and wants to re-enter his son’s life and, get this, sell Amy and Ricky’s baby to somebody that wants a baby.

Ricky had the emotional scenes this episode as he almost tearfully tells Adrian and some others the truth about why his father went to prison.

You could tell that the molestation and physical abuse has tortured the boy. It helped shed light on why Ricky acts the way he acts.

In other scenes, Amy  tells Ben, her boyfriend, that he can’t come with her to her ultrasound. Ben’s father gives his son some much-needed advice, telling him not to count on doing that kind of thing with Amy since she’s just a young teen like himself, he’s not the father of her baby, and frankly, she’s in a pretty tough situation.

Oh, and Amy learned the sex of the baby.

Things have started to get more than a little complicated for Amy. My hope is that teens watching the program will be able to see that and maybe think about just how complicated their own lives would become should they become pregnant or get get someone pregnant.

The biggest complication of them all is coming down the pike: Amy has to decide whether or not she’s going to give the baby up for adoption.

As the show progresses, it looks like viewers are going to be able to see how much angst this causes and what the implications are behind that decision.

Stay tuned.

Carla Hinton

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